I could see that it could work well but from a strictly legal perspective it cause problems. Officially you are not supposed to look after anyones child in your home for more than 2 hours a day. Obviously I know that is not practical as my charges have friends over for playdates that last more than 2 hours!! However if this was to be a regular 2 days a week then you should become registered by law. Tricky. I am not 100% up on all this as I am a nanny not a childminder but you might want to look into it yourself.

Are you sure its illegal? You can have a child live with you for up to 50 days (could be less ) before its classed as a private fostering, I heard this on the radio and it said this was legal nothing about having to be a childminder. I thought you only had to be registered if you were going to pay/be paid.I am going to be looking after friends child after school a few times a week. Surely its up to the parent who you leave your child with.If it is legal I think its fine as long as you both are agree on parenting eg food, naptimes, discipline etc. You need a back-up plan for if someone is ill and decide what to do about holidays first. Also if someone came to take your child out eg grandparents for the day would you still be happy to have your friends child and vice versa.

I just thought it would be the same as a grandparent doing unpaid unregistered childcare, but maybe that is only legal if you're related?

The possible problems I was thinking of were:

- 1 of us getting pregnant again before the other (would one then mind two of the other's children without pay? or would pay be involved? how would the mother with newborn cope with minding three young children?)

My friend and I did this (and funnily enough our children were about the same ages as yours!), although I quit my job so it ended up that I was just having her son. It has worked ok for us, but personally have found it a bit awkward sometimes, like having to tell her I can't have him because I'm too unwell or more recently because I've found a new job which is incompatible with the arrangement - not awkward because she's been ufnny with it (she has been fine) but simply because I felt bad about letting her down, iyswim?

I think for it to work you have to be really quite good friends and be able to be very open and honest if it at any point it starts to not work for you or you need to change the arrangement.

one of my mindees parents does this wiyth her friends.There are 3 of them and they have sorted out the days they work so they can take care of each others older children after school. Children are all at school together. It works fine as far as i know, They have been doing this for the last 3 yrs. Younger siblings go to nursery/childminders and if someones ill then they get a grandparent to pick them up.

There is a Care Standards Tribunal decision which mentions Reward. RT v OfstedThe situation in that case was that the childminder accepted voluntary suspension, but continued caring for some children without any payment. The tribunal didn't feel that in this particular case that the childminder was in breach of the regulations.

So from that, we could say that if there is not a payment, then it isn't reward. However, I cannot locate any other cases which mention Reward, so have nothing to re-confirm that a tribunal would more often than not reach that conclusion.